


Death is the supple suitor

by middlemarch



Category: Foyle's War
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Poetry, Romance, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 21:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8594596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: She was suited to detective work.





	

Andrew cried out in his sleep but she’d known, from that first night, she’d known not to say anything. Sometimes he wept and the tears stiffened his cheeks, made his sideburns sodden, were salt in her mouth when she woke him and he turned to her for kisses, for comfort, for her hands to make him forget. It wasn’t only Rex—he carried the weight of so many men’s souls and somehow, also their trinkets, a cleverly folded piece of paper like a crane or a many-petalled rose, a key, a handkerchief embroidered with an elegant monogram in bright silk thread no one could get anymore. He was such a lovely man and Sam loved him so much but she knew not to say so much, to ask him for the last egg and cress sandwich and not his last caress, to offer to leave and to always let him stay later than he should. Even after the wedding, after Mr. Foyle had somehow been foisted onto her as a second father when he was truly a friend, after the War was said to end, Sam knew Andrew would always hold so much grief in him she’d have to manage it, as she’d managed the Wolesley’s temperamental engine and clutch, Milner’s tender pride about his lameness, Brookie’s flirtation that was an offer, always, of more, but not well-suited to a vicar’s daughter even if she could appreciate his flash, his willingness to be Prince Albert to her Queen Victoria. She loved Andrew and that meant knowing when to demand he make love to her, when her only choice was to talk filth to him to shake him loose, and when she could ask to read his sonnet, his sestina, the villanelle that he couldn’t get to work and to let her brow furrow when it wasn’t as clear as a forced gear, a shot belt. She hoped there would be a time when he let the ghosts go, but she was resigned to the truth: he would not and they would also have a crowded marriage, she might come first but never also last, last but never first. It wasn’t what she wanted but it was close and she would make it be enough, his dark eyes, his artist’s soul, the little steadiness he’d gotten from his father in his even tread, the unthinking, unconcerned beating of his heart under her ear.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for all the Sam/Andrew shippers whom I have never satisfied with my previous stories-- I prefer an Andrew struggling with PTSD who is a serious poet, stuck in some ho-hum job.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson, as is my wont. I wonder what she would think to see all these stories titled with her poetry...


End file.
